Air Asia hospitality includes scamming its passengers with its DISHONEST Low Cost strategy

Air Asia is a Low Cost Carrier (LCC) that comes with LOW CARE CONSULTANCY (LCC) strategy. On its certain routes, they bully their weaker passengers who are just law-abiding passengers. Read here by Malaysia Chronicle.

On 29 December 2011, a Malaysian family were traveling with their infant on Air Asia X and here’s the story written by one of Air Asia X’s passengers.

Yatiechomeyl.blogspot.jp wrote :

I took Air Asia X flight on my way back to Malaysia last month because I’ve been wanting to fly with Air Asia X in order to support our own Low Cost Carrier company. I have experienced quite a bad flight journey with their staff and customer service.

I was thinking to share it in my blog so that friends and family (especially those who travels with baby/child) that are going to use Air Asia X in the future; are well-prepared to face the same condition that I’ve went through. So for those who are interested to know about my experience, kindly read this letter of complaint from me to Air Asia X.

I was a passenger on one of your flight (together with my son and my sister in law) from Tokyo Haneda (HND) to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) on 17th November 2011 (Flight D7 523). Forgive me for writing directly to you, but I feel you personally need to know exactly how badly your customers were treated by your front-line staff so you can take appropriate remedial action.

(1) Before On-Board

My rough experiences with your staff begin at the check-in counter. I was told that I can’t bring my child’s stroller up to the aircraft door/steps. I used to fly with several other airlines to go to Malaysia such as Malaysia Airlines (MAS), Korea Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways before this and all of these airlines allow me to bring my child’s stroller up to the aircraft door/steps for international flight.

I have even checked in the Air Asia website, and it is stated that “You can continue to use the stroller up to the aircraft door/steps”. So I told your counter staff politely about it, and then they look at my son and told me that “he can walk, he don’t need a stroller”. If it is so, why I couldn’t find any clause in your website stating that as one of the criteria to bring along the stroller?.

Then your ‘not-so-friendly’ counter staff insisted that I checked in the stroller as luggage and pay for the extra weight caused by check-in the stroller. Again I remembered that I’ve check about it in your website and it is stated that “we allow baby buggies/strollers/prams to be carried free of charge”. When I told this politely to the counter staff, she replied with irritating voice and says “Either you pay or you throw it!“.

So in the end I was ‘forced’ to pay extra 9kg which cost me 18000 yen (2000 yen per kg)as I don’t want to throw away my child’s brand new Recaro stroller. *18 000yen = RM 735*

Malaysiaairlinesfamilies comments “The international airlines standard does not charge the baby stroller for its passengers” This is a scam business strategy by Tony Fernandez and his gangsters. A decent refund should be made available for this family.

After that my family and I was waiting patiently to be on board into the flight D7 523 when the delay announcement was announced due to bad weather. These things happen, I do not complain about the weather as I do understand that some things are beyond anyone’s control. After all, a flight delay case has become one of Air Asia’s ‘trademarks’; so I’m fine with that.

Malaysiaairlinesfamilies comments : It’s very true that “Flight Delay is Air Asia’s trademark”and we received reliable information on Air Asia & Air Asia X’s scams and fraudulent practice which now includes all flights to be delayed especially from KLCCT if the aircraft has not filled with 90% of passengers. This leaves Air Asia & Air Asia X’s passengers would be experiencing a “further and forever DELAY flight status in their itinerary”. However, we believe a few of Air Asia’s routes will pressure Tony Fernandez and his gangsters to turnaround those flights real quick without delays because of their defaulted payment in MRO services (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul). Again, this has a safety implication and may be affecting Air Asia’s passengers’ safety. We urge the International regulators should step in immediately scrutinizing Air Asia and Air Asia X’s MRO status in certain country and its defaulted payment worldwide that could cause a major air traffic disasters. This is where Air Asia & Air Asia X has collaborated with Malaysia Airlines via CCF (Comprehensive Collaboration Framework) where in actuality, it is to save Air Asia & Air Asia X from cutting out more of its routes. We call upon the Singapore regulators to enforce its Civil Aviation law on all Air Asia’s flights for its “trademark” quick-turnaround flights that may compromise the ground safety rules.

(2) On the plane

After getting on board, we were greeted by ‘not-so-friendly’ cabin crews. Is it that hard for them to smile to your customers?. The plane is ready to take-off, things are going well. I thought so far so good but this is what happened next :

Sticky chewing-gum on the in-flight sales magazine; tell me how can I browse through the pages and buying the items when I feel gross to turn over to the next pages?. Aren’t your staffs are supposed to check the magazine before putting it into the pocket?.

On the back page of the magazine where the “QR Reader code” is displayed was crumpled. Tell me how am I supposed to scan it with my iPhone when it is in that condition?

I pre-booked meal in my ticket booking but I don’t know whether a drink is provided with the meal. So I asked politely to the cabin crew and she replied with annoying voice and says “we only give mineral water!”. Is it that difficult for your cabin crew to reply politely to your customer? Can’t she just tell me nicely if I want drinks, I have to pay for it as you only provided mineral water? I don’t mind to pay for the drinks but I do mind paying for a flight ticket that gives me bad customer service.

(3) After landed at KLCCT

We arrived at LCCT airport, Kuala Lumpur at 6.30 a.m. for parents travelling with baby and toddler; we will usually encounter several difficulties to handle our child as they were already tired during the long haul journey, jet lag due to time difference, hungry baby and it all end up with one grumpy little child.

That’s when a stroller become the ultimate aid as we can put our child on it and hang our carry-on bags to the stroller and then only we can proceed to comfort the child.

Unfortunately I am not able to comfort my son after the long flight journey because this is what happened next :

I have to focus on carrying the hand luggage down the steps in front of the aircraft door; went up the steps again to get my child and all of these are done without any help from your cabin crew or your ground staff.

We have to walk on the airport pavement for 1-2 km as the plane was parked far away from the terminal door. I have to carry my hand luggage and carry my son and walk quite far; what a great early morning exercise. I was thinking, “wouldn’t it be nice if I have my child’s stroller with me so that I don’t have to carry my 12kg son on my hip and carry my 7kg luggage on my hand as well as carrying 3kg laptop bag on my shoulder?”.

It is quite dangerous walking on the airport pavement near to the taxiway and runway with my child; what with the airplane around; with the ground equipment stuffs are all over the place; with the runway transport and luggage transport moving here and there without any gate barrier or even a mobile temporary gate along the walk from the plane to the terminal door.

What make it even more dangerous is that only one staff is showing the right way to gowhile your other ground staffs seems very busy talking to each other on the drama episodes they watch last night (I overheard them talking). It will be much safer if I can put my son on his stroller. In the end, even if my child can already walk I still have to carry him on my hip because I don’t want to be worried that he might be hit by the ground transport on the airport pavement while walking/running on the runway.

(4) At the terminal – KLCCT

I picked up my luggage and headed through the arrival gate. But before that, I went to toilet but unfortunately I am not being able to do anything there becausethe toilet inside the terminal is too dirty and smells so bad.

I went to baby room to change my son’s diaper and the same condition occurs at the baby room. The room is smelly and soaked with disposable diapers all over the place because the bin is full. Like it or not, I have to change my child’s diapers and bring home my son’s soaked disposable diapers.

These bad experiences with your flight and airport services leave me with this 6 questions:

Does Air Asia X have any protocol in place for staff to follow the information provided in your website and also to treat your polite customers nicely?

If you do have a protocol, does the response I describe above fit with it? In particular are your staffs allowed to ask passenger to make payment for the items that are free to check in and direct passengers to make the payment rather than help them nicely?

Can I get the refund on the payment that I have been ‘forced’ to make for my child’s stroller?.

Do you condone staff rudeness to passengers, and are they ever allowed to replied impolitely to the request made politely by the passenger?

Why is it that the information given in your website is not so useful as it is not the same with the one at the check-in counter?

Do you consider it is safe for the passengers to walk on the airport pavement without even putting clear signs on which way to go, or putting any barrier to show the limits to the boundary area that passenger can’t step in?

I am waiting for the answers to these questions because the experiences that I encounter during my flight with you are totally different with what you promised in your website. One of Air Asia X values is to offer “Low Fare, No Frills:Providing guests with the choice of customizing services without compromising on quality and services”.

Unfortunately, as your passenger, I feel that your quality of customer service and safety is quite bad. I would like to know if in addition to being a low-cost airline, Air Asia X is a low-service airline and a low-courtesy airline. If it is, I will make my future travel choices accordingly, and ensure that my friends and family do likewise.

I await your response.

Yours faithfully;

A frustrated D7 523 passengers.

(MSc in European Master Studies in Aeronautics and Space Technology)

Malaysiaairlinesfamilies sympathizes with your predicament having had to endure such soul-destroying journey with Air Asia X and we thank you for sharing your bad experience with Air Asia.

We plead to consumers to continue expressing their low-quality experience with Air Asia exposing their scams bullying the public with its devious (DISHONEST) low cost strategy.

Stay tune to malaysiaairlinesfamilies for more insights on How Tony Fernandez gets to KILL MAS workers? Part III where we’ll be releasing some information on MAFAA also NUFAM working for Tony Fernandez to slowly getting rid of MAS unions using MAS Cabin Crew to destroy all graded employees, the Engineers and the Pilot from the inside.

8 thoughts on “Air Asia hospitality includes scamming its passengers with its DISHONEST Low Cost strategy”

Can MAS employee do something and joint force to boycott the top management which clearly being influenced by Air Asia TF? I dont want to see MAS culture and high quality service standard being changed and influenced by the low class and pariah Air Asia. Hate it!

It is up to MAS workers to do something and joint in their forces to boycott the top management of Air Asia-TF and gangs. What MAS workers must do now is to stay united and identify their enemies inside and outside planted by TF and his gangsters. Our duty is to expose your enemies within your circle. Unfortunately, we have been informed among MAS workers, there appears to already have a group of MAS co-workers working for TF and his gangsters destabilizing MAS workers from the inside. We are also informed your enemy have forewarned to lodge police report against our site for revealing their identities and threatening to hunt us down which truly causes us unnecessary fear.

Please stay tune to our next post on Part III – How TF and his gangsters KILL MAS workers slowly using the available tools i.e. MAFAA also founded NUFAM and their plans disintegrating MAS graded employees from the inside.

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hi there, thanks for highliting my story here. The customer service of Air Asia replied to me after reading this entry, that “they’ll look into the matter”. Now it is almost 4 months after the compalints has being made..I havent get a single cent of any refund for the money that i wasn’t to pay in the first place.

I wonder how many months do they need to “look into this matter” until I get my refund. Erm..erm..erm…we’ll see

We’re very glad to hear the reply has been initiated by AirAsia X to you after 4 months later. We ask for you to lodge a report against this practice to MACC and also to Japanese Government where it incurred you, under duress to have paid heavily for your baby stroller from Japan.

We believe it is not a normal practice but rather a scam and lies to the public and citizens of Japan. By doing this, you may see your refund clears faster and in orderly. Cheers!

I hate Air Asia. It should be called the nightmare airline. I have had my laptop stolen ON a flight. and soooooo many other bad experiences. I would rather walk than take Air Asia ever again.
Air Asia is the last thing Malaysia needs.

Hello there, I think I was abused by the same person you were too.
This is what I wrote to Air Asia today:

The story begins from when I wanted to check in. At the time I have already purchased the maximum baggage I could purchase already, 40 KG. However I did a lot of shopping and I was over by 2 KG. The total of my overall baggage including my hand carry was 44.7 KG. I did not think at the time that I was only over by 2 KG because it was a very late night flight and I was already exhausted and sleepy. I only realized about this after I reached home!

Your super rude airport staff at Haneda named Y. Asakawa (the person I recorded on this video: http://youtu.be/deceJqWkEvI)
was yelling at me the entire time saying that I needed to pay 20,000 Yen for my excess. So I asked her if she can please just let it go, since it’s my first time to Japan and I have a lot of souvenirs for my family and friends. In any other countries I’ve been to (especially my home country, Indonesia) they would just let it go if it’s just 1 or 2 kg difference. but she said, “this is the policy that air asia set up. Air Asia is very strict.”

And then I asked again if I can just hand carry it, but she said that I can only have a maximum of 1 hand carry of no more than 7 kg and she made me believe that I already had 7 kg hand carry (I was of course intimidated by her constant yelling and I kept thinking how do I settle this in peace without spending any more money, didn’t even realize I was being scammed).

As you know I chose Air Asia for it’s low costs airfares to save money. Even my transportation to the airport at the time only costs me 1,000 Yen by bus. The total things I have inside the bags are a total of less than 6,000 Yen altogether. They were all souvenirs for my family and friends.

I was getting tired of trying to reason with her, so I just told her “ok, ok I will throw it out.”
She was like “are you sure? I will check later at the gate ok.”
I just went with it and ok, ok.

So I went to a duty free shop and asked them for the biggest bag they have. They gave me a huge TIAT bag.
There I was sitting near the departure gate of my flight with all my stuffs inside the bag and covered with my jackets, when Y. Asakawa suddenly started charging towards me and yelled again (as she did before) “CAN I PLEASE SEE YOUR BAGS?”
I was like WOW, it is like we were shooting a Japanese drama in the airport. Except that we weren’t.

I lifted my jackets and showed her the blue TIAT bags with of course my bags inside them, and she snatched off my boarding pass just like that. She went to go with her staff friends and stood there. So I had to go after her (is this even appropriate for a customer to be treated like this, I am not even her boyfriend or anything). and talked (again, SIGH).
This time she said that I must pay 6,000 yen if I still want to carry my bags to the cabin.
Tired of all the dramas and scenes she created, I said ok I will pay but you check in my bag. I thought to myself, hey, it’s better than paying 20,000 yen right? plus this is to calm her furious self down. I sort of pitied her.
***** To highlight the situation here, if I did not ask her to check in my bags, she would’ve taken my money and still asked me to hand carry the bags anyway ******
She agreed and wrote me a receipt which clearly says “purchased baggage at the airport 20 kg” as can be seen in the first image I attached here.

So seeing that I asked her (oh by the way it was not easy talking and calling her), every time I said “excuse me, excuse me..” just to talk to call her and ask her something, she would pretended that she was busy and kept saying “just a moment please, just a moment please” and she typed, typed away. or she would talk to her staff friends.
I insisted on waiting and talking, I said “excuse me, you wrote 20kg purchased baggage at the airport here in the receipt, can you please check in my other carry on bag as well?”
She was furious and “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 6,000 Yen is for 1 bag. You must pay another 6,000 Yen if you want to check in. Do you understand?! YOu UNDERSTAND?!?”

So I pointed to the actual receipt (the first image attached here) and showed her what it’s written there. She said “no no no no that’s wrong” and crossed off the 20kg.
(proof of this can also be seen in the image attached).

From there on, I finally realized and confirmed that she was only after money, money, money.

So I tried to take a photo of her name tag, but she noticed and quickly hid behind her colleague. She yelled “what are you doing! what are you doing! I will tell the airline you cannot board today if you take photos! Tell the airline you cannot board today if you take photos!”

****** hang on, how much now? 4000 yen? hmmmmm.. you do the math. She tried to rip me off by 16,000 yen at first and got 2,000 yen at last. Ohhhhh..

After confirming all this information, I went and talked to the Air Asia Staff in KL. I told her my situation and she said that she was very sorry I had to go through that. She asked me to go online and fill in the eform in your website (like what I’m doing now). After I was abused in Haneda by Y. Asakawa, I was deeply impressed by the treatments I got from you staffs in KL. I’ve traveled to KL with Air Asia too before and I have to say that they are very nice people over there. I began to realize how they are very fair, hardworking and helpful at the same time. The same goes to Indonesia airport staffs as well. They are the best people out of all the countries I’ve ever been to.

To add to my compliments to your KL and Indonesia staffs, I attached the second photo here of my sticker baggage from Haneda which were all stapled together by your KL airport staff (as the ones Y. Asakawa gave to me in Haneda were all separate stickers and were all over the place – I notice as well that she does not do her jobs properly at all, in all the airports I have ever been to, the airport staffs would normally place the stickers on the back of my boarding passes, but in this case, she only gave me a bunch of 3 stickers still attached to their long sticker pads – not attached to my boarding passes at all).

Now that I have told you everything, would you please do the followings:

1. Refund me the 6,000 JPY
2. Discipline, demote and constantly monitor the work of Y. Asakawa (She MUST stop this abusive, gold digging scams and rude behavior immediately towards anyone, especially towards customers. I don’t think she should even be working there, she was such a gangster!)

Thank you for reading all of my queries. Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to hearing from you soon!